The following relates to the severe floods in Cumbria
which occurred in 2009.

Update: Friday 27 November 2009

Overnight, a small number of telephone lines failed
in the Northside, Workington area. BT expect to repair them later today.
North Pennines RAYNET Group are manning Maryport Police Station and Northside
Community Centre from 08:00 - 12:00 hrs. Merseyside RAYNET will then man
from 12:00 - 18:00 hrs. If necessary, Cumbria EPU will provide their own
communications after that. The following is older information.

The English county of Cumbria has been badly affected
by floods, due to record amounts of rainfall and rivers flooding into farmland,
roads and towns. Cumbria Emergency Planning Unit (EPU) has established two
rest centres. Many people have been evacuated from their homes. They
can't return to their homes and business premises until flood damage has been
fixed. That could take weeks, months or years.

The areas affected include, but are not limited to,
Cockermouth, Workington and Keswick in West Cumbria.

Mains electricity and the 999 emergency telephone
service failed in some areas.

Some towns now have poor road access due to river
bridges being destroyed or unable to be used as they are unsafe. In
Cockermouth, a 2 minute journey across a bridge to the other side now involves a
28 mile detour taking about 70 minutes.

The flooding incident is over and is in the recovery
stage.

Calva Bridge in Workington is unsafe and can't be
used. It carries telecommunications cables. The bridge will have to
be removed as it is likely to fall down.

The police believe that the bridge is going to
collapse and chop the cables. For the local area north of River Derwent,
that will cut off about 3,000 telephones, private speech circuits, private data
circuits, radio networks which use BT circuits and the internet.
Overnight, Calva Bridge went lower by a few inches.

The army will build a footbridge upstream of Calva
Bridge. Initially, BT planned to lay a cable over that new bridge and
reroute the telephone lines. Instead, BT will bore a hole under the river,
then lay a new cable in it. That may take a week.

If the bridge collapses before the cable work is
complete, RAYNET will be called out to pass messages between 2 police stations
and 4 council locations. Cell phones should still work, but may be
congested. The public have been told that if they require the emergency
services, they can go to one of the designated 4 locations and a radio operator
will summon them. RAYNET manning will be continuous for possibly 9 to 14
days.

Cumbria County Council offers advice to residents for
when telephone services are cut at

RAYNET have selected possible relay sites in the area
and carried out radio link tests on 26 November.

RAYNET groups currently on standby are: North
Pennines, Richmond and Cleveland. Many other RAYNET groups are on some
lower level of alert in case the emergency services require us to provide extra
communications.